The hike in household waste charges has "no justification whatsoever" according to Fianna Fail, who have called for a regulator to be appointed to the sector.

Fianna Fail along with Labour, Sinn Fein and the Social Democrats have all criticised the Government’s proposals to abolish the flat-fee system.

And as the row deepens over a potential hike in domestic bin charges, environment spokesman Timmy Dooley said Government proposals to abolish flat-fees will send collection prices sky-rocketing.

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Deputy Dooley said: “Last week, unilaterally Minister Naughten introduced again the elimination of the flat fee. It is our belief that that will lead to an increase in the cost of the collection of bins.

“We believe that there is not a necessity to increase prices and to give certainty and security to homeowners we believe that a regulatory leader should be put in place, to set limits in relation to the price for the collection, and the disposal of waste.”

He added: “From the research we have done there is absolutely no necessity whatsoever for a rise in the cost of collection of waste.

“For the vast majority, there may be some isolated cases where there were very low introductory rates on a flat fee, that would be phasing out anyway over time.

“But there’s no necessity whatsoever, or no justification whatsoever from the work that we have done to see any increase in fees.

“We don’t believe that people should be penalised in any way by a price hike at a time when people are hard pressed and when there’s no necessity or justification for it.”

Fine Gael Leader Leo Varadkar (Photo: Collins Photo Agency)

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the changes would not take effect for 18 months but were necessary for a “very sound environmental reason.”

He said: “People have been paying for their bins to be collected for more than 10 years now.

“What there is, is a change to a new system of how bin charges are calculated - moving away from a flat charge that people pay once a year to pay by weight or pay by lift.

“In fact half the country already is on that system. So most people or at least half the people in the country are very used to it.

“What we need to do is to reduce the amount of waste that we produce and the amount of waste that we throw away.

“And markets do work and by incentivising people to recycle, to compost, to reuse, and to throw less away, we then reduce the demand on landfill and that’s what’s happening.”

He told the Dail on Tuesday that the Government intended to set up a watchdog to monitor the sector and would use price regulation if costs spiral out of control.

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Labour have called for the Environmental Protection Agency to be appointed as the regulator to prevent “price gouging.”

Senator Kevin Humphreys said: “There’s many areas right across Ireland where there’s no competition in the market, so therefore, the market is not functioning properly.

“That’s why we need to have a clear, defined regulator and people can honestly believe that the prices they’re being charged is an economic charge, and not the price-gouging that we’ve seen in the past.”

Meanwhile the Social Democrats have called for waste collection companies to publish their accounts before a regulator is appointed.

Leader Catherine Murphy said: “It’s impossible to know in the current environment what profits are being made. Essentially then, how do you regulate in the absence of having that information?”

Labour TD Sean Sherlock warned that the Government was in danger of misjudging the public mood on the issue, and said he feared a return to the mass protests that greeted the water charges.

He said: “What we fear is that in the current regime, or what he is proposing will actually lead to thousands of people coming out onto the streets, because we can anticipate that there will be price increases.

“I don’t think it’s fair for consumers out there to be in a situation where they go from a flat charge all of a sudden then to maybe 20% or 30% increases in the cost of their refuse on a weekly basis, without any examination of what the market is.”